Mitch McConnell robocall hits W.H. gun plan

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) released a Robocall during the weekend to his constituents calling President Barack Obama’s gun control package “just plain wrong” and vowed to fight “tooth and nail” against it.

In the call, McConnell said: “President Obama and his team are doing everything in their power to restrict your constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Their efforts to restrict your rights, invading your personal privacy and overstepping their authority with executive orders, is just plain wrong.”

Text Size

-

+

reset

McConnell — now in his fifth term and up for reelection in 2014 — continued: “I want you to know that I will be doing everything in my power as Senate Republican leader, fighting tooth and nail, to protect your Second Amendment rights so that law-abiding Kentuckians such as yourself can properly and adequately protect yourself, your family and your country.”

Last week, Obama announced wide-ranging gun control proposals — including calling on Congress to overhaul the federal background check system, limit gun magazines and ban on military-style assault weapons, among other proposals. The proposal came following the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six others were killed.

It’s set up a contentious — albeit partisan — debate among lawmakers, with Republicans wary of upsetting a base that includes many staunch Second Amendment supporters. Chief among them: The National Rifle Association, whose CEO Wayne LaPierre wrote in a letter to supporters that they were planning “the fight of the century” following Obama’s proposals.

McConnell’s campaign manager Jesse Benton also went on the attack against Obama’s proposals, which he wrote in a letter to supporters that “gun-grabbers” in the Senate are ready to support.

“You and I are literally surrounded. The gun-grabbers in the Senate are about to launch an all-out assault on the Second Amendment. On your rights. On your freedom,” he wrote in the letter over the weekend.

He continued: “It is almost hard to believe the sheer breadth and brazenness of this attempt to gut our Constitution. … President Obama and his allies are committed to eroding your Constitutional freedoms.”